Product Development

Decisions regarding strategic flexibility are qualitative and complex. This article introduces an attempt to operationalize the construct of strategic flexibility. As a decision support tool for strategic flexibility management - a management of intentional change, it will be developed a qualitative performance-measurement-system. This tool will provide the user a deeper knowledge of relevant design parameters of strategic flexibility and their relations.

petition demand new strategies in the management of an increasing complexity. Modularization of complex systems is such a strategy, practical for products and processes. However, the planning of modular structures takes place at an early stage of product development and is associated with many risks. Because of this, changes in products and processes are inevitable. Therefore, the design of an alterable module structure and effective management of module changes is the focus of the following article.

Nowadays the ramp-up of products is a decisive influence parameter in business competition, therefore it is a crucial component for the competitiveness of a company. Being able to place products on the market in shorter periods of development and at the same time improve quality, while managing constant diversification, is a challenge companies manufacturing series products must face. This paper is a style guide demonstrating actual weak points and problems in product development revealed by a survey and interviews.

The need to continuously adapt production systems to changing market conditions has dramatically increased during the last years. In particular small and medium sized enterprises (SME) are faced with the challenge to develop lean production systems and often struggle to identify and apply appropriate production system design methods. This paper presents a concept that supports SME to identify suitable production system design principles and methods and to implement lean production systems with respect to strategy, product life cycle phases and external change drivers.

Machine manufacturers are challenged by the increasing diversity of versions and shorter product life cycles. Thus machines have to be developed and commissioned in a shorter period of time. Additionally the development process of many manufacturers is built up sequentially due to the interdependencies of the mechatronic disciplines. Insufficient coordination between the development divisions leads to time delay during the commissioning. Synergy effects arising from related previous projects can be enhanced by systematic reuse of mechatronic modules in terms of mechatronic standards. This saves time and increases the development quality.

Manufacturing flexibility is currently one of the key trends within the automotive industry. In this context, the determination of the optimal degree of flexibility represents a complex decision problem. First of all this article clarifies chances and modes of operation of flexibility in the automotive production. Manufacturing flexibility can be used both to counter short- and medium-term market fluctuations and as a strategic approach to realize long-term costs advantages. Subsequently different aspects which have to be considered within the strategic planning are commented on in detail. The contribution clarifies that the planning of optimal flexibility requires an integrated planning approach.

Due to the rising complexity in product and in development projects joint with rising cost pressure the task of project planning becomes more and more demanding. To support the project planner in this task, the IAW developed a method for modelling and simulation of work organizational coherences. This approach afford the planner to compare the consequence of different personnel and financial endowment to the project progression and by this to choose the most efficient constellation.

As a consequence of the increasing globalization many industrial companies see themselves forced to secure their competitive ability by an internationalization of their production locations. This requires a long-term planning of the future product structures and process chains, in order to control the variant variety and to protect the core competences. Objectives of the described method are a generation of variants close to the market and a bundling of the core competences.

The product change is a natural component of the development process and arises in the framework of a continuous improvement and refinement of planning inevitably. Ideally a constant information gain in the process of planning leads to a revision and an alteration of existing acceptance and concepts. A special case of the change is described by the Product Change Propagation. A local products change reproduces itself global and leads to a number of subsequent product changes, which can be measured heavily. In the complex planning surrounding the effect of a product change can be mostly not promptly recognised and will have complex correction loops as a consequence. This paper offers, aligned to the process organisation, a system-oriented approach for the early identification of planning inconsistencies by subsequent product changes.

IT systems which operate in a dynamic environment must adapt to permanently changing business requirements. In particular new compliance rules like Sarbanes-Oxley-Act or BASEL II demand complete transparency of business processes and IT-support, also after changes. IT-departments and software providers need to clearly define and continuously assure the quality of the IT system during development and operation.